Friday, May 26, 2006

Waves

There is a beach that I really enjoy visiting. As well as being very beautiful with crystal clear waters, it has some great three, four, even five high metre waves. It's the thing that keeps me coming back to the place time and time again. However, most people here prefer the sea when its calm and smooth as a billiard table, they like the fact that it is just like a swimming pool, predictable, safe.

Now the secret to swimming with large waves is to know when to enter the sea. Go in too late and you get hit by the full force of the wave, which can knock you for six. Get it right and its like having your own personal carnival ride.

It occurred to me that this is a good analogy as far as using technology in the classroom is concerned, reading blogs such as Cool Cat Teacher, Ewan McIntosh's Edublog or EFL Geek I see teachers wading out to meet the huge changes that are rapidly approaching, preparing their students to deal with and even enjoy the such developments'

On the other hand those teachers and institutions that ignore the existence of such changes are going to hit doubly hard by the swiftness of the technological, economic and geopolitical wave that is coming our way.

They believe that they can keep on teaching using the materials and approaches they have always used and feel most comfortable with. That the outside world will not intrude upon what happens inside the classroom. I wonder how deep the water has to get before they realise change is inevitable ?

8 comments:

Well, in a sense the whole blog is a plug for myself so I guess I can share the glory for a post or two LOL.

Joking aside, I do believe that you and the others are pushing the envelope as far as teaching is concerned. It may seem that at times we are banging our heads against a brick wall and that we have to struggle for every tiny step foward, but that is part and parcel of being at the forefront of something knew.

Do you think the Wright brothers were satisfied with "hopping" just a few hundred yards on their first flight ?

Can you imagine if doctors stayed behind and did only what they were comfortable with? What if lawyers didn't keep up to date with precedent?

While I can understand the reasons for teachers sticking with what is comfortable, in this day and age that really doesn't - and can't work. Teachers who don't stay on top of new approaches, mediums, and materials for teaching can't really be teachers, can they?

And I'm not just talking about technology, or teaching second languages, either. I think this applies across the board.

What a great point! I think education does very well in virtual stasis but has traditionally not done well in states of flux.

As far as technology is concerned, I believe the large educational bureaucracies are going to have to decentralize some of their curriculum so that local organizations can teach and respond to technological change more quickly.

I can teach and "ride the wave" so to speak because of a visionary curriculum director who has put a lot of control in my hands.

In my case, I can grab my board and hit the wave and give her the high sign as my students and I ride the crest.

I love this analogy and will keep it as I talk about change this summer! Great post! I love reading your blog! Thank you for reading mine!